The best tech products of 2022: Insta360 X3 action camera, nReal Air portable display, M2 MacBook Air, Apple AirPods Pro (2nd Gen) and more
- It was a year of incremental improvements in already great gadgets, from Apple’s new MacBook and AirPods Pro to Insta360’s latest action camera for adventurers
- One that caught the eye was nReal Air, glasses with micro-OLED displays that project HD-quality cinema. No more airline video screen woes for this reviewer
This year didn’t bring any one headline-grabbing innovation in consumer technology. Instead, we got a lot of excellent products that were more efficient, portable, and affordable than their predecessors.
With the world continuing to open up after the Covid-19 pandemic, gadgets that are portable and powerful are proving increasingly useful. These are my top seven of 2022.
Insta360 X3
If you follow travel vloggers, action-sports people or adventurers on Instagram, there’s a chance you have seen them run around with one arm extended and a lens seemingly hovering above them. They are not using a drone, but an Insta360 action camera.
Based in Shenzhen, southern China, Insta360 has for years been behind the best reviewed consumer-grade 360-degree cameras. The devices’ ability to reframe a 360-degree video as a dynamic “normal” video with pans, tilts and zooms has proved extremely useful for those who want to film themselves on the go.
The X3, released this year, improves on previous models by increasing the screen and battery size significantly, and these changes are enough to make what was already the best one-person self-filming tool even better.
HK$3,648/US$449, available at most online and offline consumer electronics retailers, including the Apple Store
nReal Air
The nReal Air is a pair of glasses with micro-OLED displays built in that pumps out vibrant, hi-res visuals projected in front of the wearer’s face.
